Study: 5-HTT genotype influences depression response to stressful events

And we can all fiddle while Rome burns!

:shrug:

Gene therapy, or a pill to modulate the effects of the wayward gene. Make everyone happy, so no one cares whilst the world goes to hell in a handbasket, courtesy of ChimpCo.

:eyes:

One could do what you're claiming they're trying to do a lot easier with the drugs already available.

I am just postualating a theory as to how this administration might potentially use this information. You just might want to get over your eye rolling self....!!!

:rofl:

Yeah. OK. Postulate away. Conspiracy is fun, but it doesn't help those suffering from depression. And I don't see how that helps a discussion of research into the genetics and physiology of the brain move forward in a direction that creates any increase in understanding.

This is a a scientific thread on a political board, so excuse the fuck out of me if I marry the two. I certainly wasn't conspiring, I was postuating. There's a difference. It was a hell of a lot more than you did--you simply posted an abstract of someone else's research, and didn't even take the time to comment on it, which is probably why you got such a "lame" response.

You must be a load of fun at parties. A real hail fellow well met, I am sure...see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya, as the kids today say.

I must "make a comment."

LOL!

:rofl:

Sorry, but your "postulation" is nothing more than unjustified conspiracy theory. You might not want to see it that way, but I see no other basis for your "postulation."

Thanks for the personal attack, btw. Who is touchy?

Got mirror, dude?

:D

You posted an article. You did not articulate which direction you wanted any discussion of said article to take. I did not order you to make a comment, however, if you want to direct the discussion, you need to put up a signpost and not expect people to read your angry mind. I took a political tack, and here you are, BERATING me, for not being "scientific enough" to suit you.

Take that mirror and stick it...in front of your own face. Who denigrated my post with a cartoon eye roll, who pulled out the snide stick first? You might benefit from these therapies, apparently.

I find your efforts to appear somehow superior and your clear desire to pick a fight rather curious...and sad, in a way.

Do you do this often? Does it make you feel better when you get into a one way hissy fit with someone who really doesn't care?

You might want to go get some help. Sincerely.

I'm the one trying to pick a fight?

Your first post was nothing but a snide remark intended to bring conversation down to the gutter. So, please, don't try to paint me with personal insecurities noted in that mirror.

Nevertheless, thanks for the many laughs.

Please have something to say the next time you choose to post.

Thanks.

:shrug:

depression. Not so many years ago when my marriage was collapsing I was depressed, insomniac, delusional. I went looking for help and got a prescription for sleeping pills. SLEEPING PILLS! A whole fricking bottle of pills I could take and make the bad stuff go away!

When I saw this about finding genetic markers for depression, the first thing I thought of was that will lead to a pill.

I'm easily spooked when it comes to the pharmacology industry.

and its treatment before "getting spooked."

Just a suggestion.

Here are a couple of good places to start:

http://www.lib.calpoly.edu/infocomp/modules/05_evaluate/WIC2b.html

and...

http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/2003/june/heeringen.asp

looks at 70 miles per hour. No one needs to tell me about how I sat with that bottle of pills in my hand for three hours before throwing them in the toilet. How bout knowing that the Prozac was making me crazy, but being afraid to not use it? Or the Welbutrin dampening the depression, but also wiping out my sex drive and making it impossible to write, create, working on my novel?

I am currently free of psychoactive drugs, but wonder what effects go unnoticed with the combination of other medications I have to take for physical ailments. Side effects might be known for any one drug, but two in combination become problematical, and any three in combination and you're just rolling the dice.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm a strong believer in scientific inquiry and the accumulation of knowledge, but we know a hell of a lot less than we think we do, and do totally irresponsible things based on that lack of knowledge. With something like this, for any one person who thinks "treatment" there's bound to be another who thinks "behavior control opportunity". And guess which one will get the funding.

First it was sleeping pills, then it was antidepressants? And it's the medication's fault rather than the health care provider who should be guiding you through the use of medication so that such side effects are noted and the correct action taken?

And you'll excuse me if I don't see the 50 percent of health care providers out there who you think want to control the behavior of their patients.

Finally, this reasearch is being done to better understand what is going on so that treatments may be offered with fewer side-effects. And that's what makes your initial response so bizarre, especially combined with the last paragraph of this response. Sorry, but your initial response to this thread was unconstructive, overboard and out-of-context with the information presented.

Finally, anecdotal, personal experience has its value. But out of context it can be dangerous. So please don't dismiss the information I offered so easily. And please don't dismiss the roads to other information that it would lead to, if you chose to read. Without the full picture as background, each of our personal experiences offers little that can benefit others, much less that can truly benefit ourselves in the long run.

I was depressed and crazy, not stupid. I immediately changed doctors. The next one prescribed Xanax and Prozac. Which made me, concurrently, less depressed and more suicidal. After 9 months of that, I was changed to the Welbutrin, which was more or less benign. As long as I wasn't concerned about sex or artistic creation.

What did the trick was not the psychiatrists with their expensive medications and 20 minute office visits every six months, but twice weekly visits with a psychologist. Pure talk therapy.

So yes, I do have a jaundiced view of the psychiatric/pharmacologic method.

That said, I hope the new research does produce some results. I'm just not holding my breath.

Adios -- gotta go to work.

And it's not the psychiatrists, but insurance that is the issue with regard to visits and the time given for them.

As for your comments about artistic creation, I have found it interesting that the artistic folks I know who have taken antidepressants actually were much more creative in the periods when they took them than in the periods when they were not. Yet, for some reason, some of them still choose to complain about how they don't "feel" artistic on the antidepressants. I'm wondering about the power of suggestion in regard to this belief, though I'm sure that this is not something that can be generalized.

Further, you had sexual side effects with Wellbutrin?

Very interesting.

Unlike the other poster, I am "crazy." I have had at least five major depressive episodes since I was a child. And that was five too many. Crazy, let me count the ways: clinical depression, anxiety attacks and OCD. I am fortunate that Paxil works well for me. I am on a high maintenence dose probably for the rest of my life. So I live without a sex life; having no life is far more serious.

I have read that some people have a greater propensity for developing depression, through genetics and individual sensitivity. This discovery is another piece in the puzzle. Thanks.

For those of us who really do have psych problems, just knowing that it isn't a "character weakness" helps us cope.